This is my dithyramb.

Finished Projects! Wow!

Well, you may not believe it (I can hardly believe it myself.), but I found new drive to finish all those projects I was procrastinating on. I’m excited to show you.

Now this first one is borderline “Craft Fail”: The Swimsuit. The nice thing is, it looks great on the hanger.

Front view

Back view

Now, maybe you will (immediately) notice something I did not. I was so enamored with the chevron design that I only focused on lining the points up with the middle of the suit. I was so proud of myself! Now my husband noticed what you may be laughing about right now, but he knows that it annoys me when he trouble-shoots my projects, so he wisely stayed silent until I tried my finished suit on and saw it for myself. In case you haven’t noticed, think about how the points of a chevron design could, possibly, act as arrows…Do YOU want arrows indicating your most private areas? I certainly don’t! Despite this feeling on my part, it seems I managed to point arrows at both my upper and lower private areas. Oops. That’s awkward.

I also realized partway through that although I thought I was sewing View C on my pattern, which has a built-in shelf bra, I had actually been sewing View A (even though I cut out View C), and had left the shelf bra out. Oops.

See that extra piece on the left? Yep. Forgot it. But, you know, I figured I could just skip it because there is that other view without it, so whatever. Moving on.

At that point, I made the decision to carry on and just finish the suit and hope for something wearable. I knew I could rip it out, and I also knew that if I did, it would cause a mental block and I would never finish this suit or make another one again, so I had to push through. I ran into a few quality issues, but I decided to ignore them. Here is my contrast edge with a few wrinkles. Still a cool concept though, don’t you think?

So, I finally finished, and was hoping for something wearable. (Sorry, but you aren’t getting a picture of the finished project. I don’t feel embarrassed by how it looks, but there is something about modeling a bathing suit on the internet that doesn’t appeal to me.) It looked ok when I put it on, although the fabric was a little thinner than I would have liked. That’s when I saw the “arrows” on the suit and also realized that it wasn’t squishing me because it was actually a bit too loose. I had followed the measurements on the pattern, but either I had picked the wrong fabric (very possible) or they don’t have enough negative ease built into the pattern. It’s really had to tell what is operator-error or pattern-error here. Most/all is probably operator-error since this was my first attempt.

Will I wear this in public? No. But am I glad I made it? Yes. Now the question is: Should I buy more fabric and try again since I could probably get through it quickly now that I’ve done it once, or will I still get a mediocre suit because the pattern is not awesome? I don’t have the experience to know. What do you think?

(In case you want to read it, I posted a review with more technical details on PatternReview about this pattern.)

Now for the other two projects, the shirt and the dress. Rather than getting fancy with them, despite how cool it could have been, I could tell that if I didn’t finish them soon, they would enter that perpetual work-in-progress zone and never be done, so I decided to call them finished with only the contrast binding on the neck and shoulders.

The shirt

The dress

I did have to go back and do a small zigzag stitch right on the edges because the wide zigzag I did in the middle of the binding didn’t reach far enough out to tack the edges of the binding down, and it kept rolling up. Maybe you can just see it below.

Both of these patterns are my machine-sewn version of some of the basics in Alabama Studio Sewing + Design by Natalie Chanin. I love the look of the hand-sewn garments (especially the embellished ones) in her books, but when I want a quick project with a great silhouette, I sew the basic patterns on my machine (plus, you can use old t-shirts or knit sheets for fabric).

I’ve worn the shirt, and I like it, although I will give you one thing to be aware of if you sew with knits sheets. Sometimes (ok, every time I’ve used them) the grain is off. I don’t often notice it in the finished garment, but I feel like this shirt pulls slightly to one side. It’s subtle. I’m the only one who will notice, but I haven’t yet started to obsess about fabric grain. If you do–then buyer beware! The good news is that knit is really forgiving and I never find any of that to be a problem after a few wears.

The dress fabric is pretty thin, so it shows curves and bumps more than I would like (as opposed to skimming over them), but I’m going to try some of the layering techniques in the Alabama Chanin books and see what I come up with. I think it will be cool in the end.

Wow. If you hung in there through this super-long post, way to go! Before we go, I want to tell you that I’m keeping my eyes open for a day to take you along clamming (virtually). This has been a terrible clamming summer with lots of clam-bed closures for a late red-tide bloom (I feel knowledgeable saying that, even though I just learned about it.) and due to rainfall. (I can explain that more another time.) I tried to go last week to do a little “catch and release” clamming, but didn’t find any. I’ll try again, though, and try to document it all for you so you can come along via the blog.

Update: After hanging on hangers, the fabric in the shirt and dress seem to have relaxed enough that the shirt no longer pulls to the side and, while the dress still pulls to the side a bit, the fabric has relaxed enough that it no longer shows every bump and line. The dress has also lengthened to floor length, rather than ending at the top of my feet. Problems solved! 😉

Like this:

Related

About Lisa Poblenz (patternandbranch)

I write the blog Pattern and Branch. Pattern and Branch is dedicated to exploration and curiosity, trying new things, and finding new ideas in the areas of art, craft, food, and life. I love making and learning. Come join in!

Wow! I love all your projects! I think the swimsuit looks pretty good – most people probably wouldn’t even notice the wrinkling unless they were standing really close. The shirt and dress look so comfy! The dress looks like it could also be used for comfortable pjs, if you can’t think of a nice way to layer it.

Love all of it, Lisa. You do a great job of powering through all the obstacles. I agree with Miquillen on her blog “The Nester”….”I doesn’t have to be perfect to be beautiful.” Keep up the great work!!!!